Whumptober: Day 2 - Explosion
by Lif61
Summary: Jack is trying to lead his people to a safe place in Apocalypse World when he falls victim to one of the angels' traps.


**A/N: Written for day 2 of Whumptober 2019.**

**Prompt: explosion**

* * *

Jack was leading a troop of his men up north, and scouts that had been a day or two ahead of them had reported back that there was no angel activity, but that could always change. They were meeting up with more members of what was left of the human race in Ohio, and from what Bobby had told him they were in what had once been Kentucky. Since coming to Apocalypse World Jack had looked at maps, and tried to understand geography — which had been a new word for him to learn — to find out where Michael's troops were.

Sometimes it seemed random where the angels touched down, and other times it was like they could home in on human activity, or as Bobby had said they were tracking Jack. And now Jack's people didn't have any wide expanse of trees to spread out in to protect themselves. Where they were was nothing more but rocks, and clay, mountains rising up, and a river lying ahead of them. The ground had been scorched by Grace a decade earlier according to Bobby, and now it'd been leeched of all nutrition and life.

"I don't like the looks of it," Bobby told him from his right where they lay up on a cliff, looking down below them on the trail to the river.

Mary was on his other side. She'd been helpful in taking care of him, even though he told himself he didn't need it. He didn't need people to get close to him. He just hurt them.

"Too open," Mary agreed.

"Do you think it's a trap?" Jack asked. When he spoke he was careful with his words since he was quite new to being alive despite the terrible things he'd seen.

"Could be," Bobby murmured.

Jack furrowed his brow, staring down at the blank earth, thinking.

He could send men down there, but then what if it was a trap? They'd die. For him.

And already Michael had taken too many lives. They were losing. So far Jack had done nothing but lessen the killing. It brought hope, relief. But it wasn't enough.

There weren't lives to spare.

"What if I go?" Jack asked.

"Kid, you're our number one weapon, and even if the angels don't have the whole kit and caboodle set up down there, that's open ground…" He trailed off, and Jack glanced at him questioningly.

He still didn't quite understand why humans wouldn't finish what they were saying. Was there some unspoken understanding between them that he was missing out on?

"What?"

"There's rumors of a pass through the mountains 'round here. Should spit us out a couple a days south of where we're thinkin' on gettin'."

"Do the angels know about it?" Mary asked.

"Don't know," Bobby answered truthfully. "No solid intel, and what I've got's a year old."

"So either way the angels could attack us," Jack reasoned.

He pulled back, no longer resting on the lip of the cliff, and had Bobby take out a map.

It took some strategizing, and help from Mary, but Jack realized the safest bet was for his people to go through the mountain trail. They'd have cover there. The field of ash and dirt and rock he looked out on seemed prime for a battlefield.

Jack had to work on the assumption that the angels didn't know where he was going, but if he was a beacon for Michael's troops to follow he couldn't risk further endangering his people.

"The pass will be safer for everyone," Jack told Bobby, helping the hunter gather up his equipment. "You lead them." He handed over his binoculars, and hefted his own pack onto his shoulders.

"What? Jack!" Mary exclaimed, seeming to already know what he was planning.

"Yeah? And where're you goin', kid?"

He pointed. "The valley. If the angels can track me they'll be paying attention to me, not you. I can't let anyone else die."

Bobby shook his head, and Jack could smell an almost-sweet scent from him, but it was tainted through with something. Sadness?

"Any chance I can say anything to convince ya?"

"I have to do this."

Mary resolutely picked up her pack as well, tightening the straps.

"Then I'm coming too."

Jack now knew her well enough to not argue. When Mary had set her mind on something that was it.

After saying goodbyes, and seeing that orders were properly given out to his people, Jack set out, getting a head start to give the angels something to pay attention to. The plan was to meet up in two weeks.

He felt eyes on the back of his head with his departure, fear tinging the air as he mostly slipped down the slope.

It happened when Mary was about ten feet behind him.

He'd taken a step, the ground sturdier than it had been, a beep met his ears, and before he could even inhale it was is his entire body had been struck by a giant force. It seemed much more powerful than him in the moment, sound slamming into his chest and through him, heat, and pressure smacking into every cell in his body.

Jack couldn't see, eyes blinded by sudden agony, but he thought maybe he was in the air. There was an impact, another, he rolled, and then all of him ached, head pounding, ears ringing. His left leg was cold though hot blood was quickly soaking it, pain he'd never felt before taking over him, and more blood was pouring from him, like there were great holes that had been torn into his torso. Jack lay there realizing that was exactly what had happened.

It smelled like something was cooking, and his pack lay out of reach, on fire, smoking. But he'd had no food in there. The smell was him.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't properly swallow, or do any of the things his body had been built to do. A scream wanted to come from him, but he was choking on his own blood, and it came up past his lips with every attempted breath.

Any moment caught in that agony was too much, and anything else was incomprehensible. He thought Mary might've been by him, her blonde hair a gold against the smoke, dying flame, and blue of the sky.

Hands were on him, against his chest, and Jack coughed. He trembled, brain wanting to shut down, but alight with activity, overwhelmed with sensations and signals.

For a human they'd mean death.

For Jack it meant his Grace weaving through every atom and molecule to piece himself back together. But the process wasn't working right with too many injuries to take care of at once, and he had to lie there and listen to Mary's horrified sobs.

His people tried coming to him, Mary yelling for them to stay back, but Bobby approached anyway.

"God damn it, kid!"

It seemed as if there was arguing going on, voices shouted above him, and then his head was resting in Mary's lap, her hands running through his hair.

Bobby kept pressure against his wounds, though the three of them were slick with blood.

"Jack, honey, it's okay," Mary got out. "It's okay. You have to heal yourself. Heal yourself, alright?"

He was trying! Couldn't they see he was trying?

Eyes glowing, golden light taking over him, he finally felt his lungs come back together. And he screamed. Energy radiated from him with his scream, and blasts set off all around him, rock shooting up into the air before clattering down, fires burning, smoke rising, and ash and soot and craters remaining. Destruction coated the air, clotting in his lungs, but still he managed to scream.

Grace flowed through him, sinuous and all-encompassing, and he was acutely aware of all the damage done to him. Organs had been torn through, and his left leg had almost been completely blown off. Horror seeped into his punctured stomach.

With no more air left in his lungs, his voice died down to whimpers, and the explosions around him came to an end. They went off farther out in the valley, screams of orange and noise.

He reached up and gripped Mary, surprised that he could.

His Grace was still taking over healing of his body, but it took time, energy. Eventually, Jack was able to talk as he looked up at them, "H-h-hurts."

It was all he knew to say, or wanted to say.

"I know, sweetie. I know."

Then to Bobby, "Do we move him? He's healing, but we're out in the open. The angels'll find us now."

"Jack, we're gonna try and lift ya up, okay?" Bobby asked, getting in his face.

He called others down the slope, and then he was being hoisted up. The scream he let out made their ears start bleeding.

A stretcher was made for him once they were back up the top of the cliff, and Jack was carried by Mary and another hunter as they trekked to the pass.

Hours later when Jack was healed, free of pain, but so exhausted he could barely stand, he was clapped on the back, cheered for. His people were happy he was alright. Jack felt numb.

"You sure gave us a scare," Bobby told him, getting him away from all the attention now that they'd set up camp. "Mary and I, we thought you were a goner."

"I heal," Jack explained, still too shocked from the days events to say much else.

"Yeah, and apparently can detonate an entire minefield just by screaming at it."

He brought Jack under an overhang to where he'd set up a tent, and Mary soon joined them. "Are you alright?" she asked him.

Jack met her gaze, but didn't answer her question. He couldn't.

"Will the angels know?" he asked. "Where we are, I mean."

With tears in her eyes she answered, "No. Think you… think you distracted them."

He looked at everyone, saw that they were alive, at least for another day, and in this world where they had to claw and scrape for everything, that was all he could ask for.

"Then I'm alright."


End file.
